Breaking Free

Called to Serve the Lord in Thailand!

2012-01-20T22:08:00.000-08:00

Called to Serve in Thailand!

In August of 2011, my wife and I individually and unconditionally surrendered to the Lord. The words of our prayers may have varied slightly, but they both went something like this:

"Lord, I surrender my life to you. I want to do whatever your will is for me, no matter what it is, with no reservations, even if it something that I don't want. Whether it is witnessing in the street, selling all that I have and giving it to the poor, or moving to another country to be missionaries - whatever it may be Lord, just show me the way, and I will follow."

Once we opened our hearts fully, holding nothing back, it was not long before we heard His response: I want you in Thailand.

Having been one who in the past was often skeptical when others would say they "heard" something from the Lord, I was surprised at the clarity and specifity of His call to me. I knew it was not something I came up with on my own, nor was it a random, idle thought. It was a firm certainty, and there was no doubt in my mind. This was from the Holy Spirit, and He was telling me that He wanted me and my family to serve Him in Thailand.

My wife and I prayed earnestly about it. We spent time listening. We fasted. The calling remained consistent. I knew others would question whether this was truly from God or not, but I also knew that it was no longer a question of doubt for us, but rather now one of obedience. We could not in good conscience, having asked God to lead us in his will no matter what it might be, now ignore him when He was showing us that will.

One of our first questions was "Why Thailand?" It's not what we would have chosen. We were not really inclined towards missionary work previous to this - I had been working very hard to get a business launched developing software for the internet. We had always dreamed of having a nice home in the mountains of Colorado someday. If we had thought of being missionaries, it is much more likely we would have chosen someplace in Africa, like the pictures and films we sometimes saw at church. I would not personally have chosen Thailand. Although I do have an aunt who lives in Alaska who is Thai, it was just not a place that I ever remember spending much time thinking about. I doubt I would have chosen anywhere in Asia for that matter. I had nothing against Asia, it just never occurred to me to spend much time considering it, especially in terms of service to the Lord. This was clearly not our choice - it was something that the Lord chose for us, seemingly inexplicably. As we began to learn more about it, however, we began to see why.

As it turns out, there is a tremendous opportunity there for those who desire to bring the love of Yeshua to those in need. Driven primarily by the sex trade industry, Thailand is one of the primary hubs in the world around which a great deal of human trafficking occurs, especially of children. It is also the place where many refugees from neighboring countries, particularly Burma (also known as Myanmar), come in search of peace and safety, but life is difficult for these stateless people, because no country will claim them as its own. Some of these families that come across the border will sell or even give away a child, hoping that it will give them a better chance of survival. Children of women in prison are forced to give up their children at the age of two. It is also not uncommon for parents to abandon newborns at hospitals and other public places. HIV/AIDS is endemic there. Some children become orphans after losing their parents to AIDS. Many themselves are either born HIV positive or become infected after being forced into the sex industry. According to UNICEF, there were 1.4 million orphans in Thailand as of 2009 and some sources estimate that over 25,000 of these are homeless and living on the streets of the cities there.

In addition to all of this, we discoverd that it is also the only country in that entire region that is legally open to missionaries. Thailand is wide open, and the need is so great that we found more than a few missionaries there who seem to be encouraging, if not outright pleading, for others to come and help. Whether it is simply witnessing to the predominantly unreached population, working in the inner cities, working with refugees and other people groups (such as the Karen), educating the disadvantaged, or simply offering a family and shelter to children with no parents and no home, the need for compassion there far outstrips the supply.

As we began to realize these things, the fact began to sink in that this did not seem to be a very safe place to bring children. We read chilling stories, such as a news article we read one day that reported the kidnapping of 54 children in the middle of the night. They were loaded onto trucks and driven away, never to be seen again. One night my wife brought up the possibility of one of our own children being kidnapped there. The thought was horrifying - I could not bear to even contemplate it. I began to question God about His calling - did he really want a family with children going to such a place?

At the peak of my concern over this issue, the Holy Spirit filled me with an inexplicable sense of peace. "I am with you," He said, "and I will protect you and your family. There is no safer place to be than walking the path that I have set before you." By this time, however, the concept of what was happening there had become a reality for me. I knew that God cared for those children, and agonized over the circumstances of their existence even more deeply than I would have for my own children - and he wanted us to see them that way too. So we began praying for the children there, and asking the Lord to prepare the way for us to go. We know why we are going now - it is to provide a refuge for children and bring them up in the knowledge and grace of our savior Yeshua - to save them not only from the streets, but to lead them to eternal salvation.

We still do not know nearly as much as we would like. We don't know exactly when we are leaving, or how we are going to get there, but we are following God's lead, step by step, and we know that He will provide the way, so long as we are willing to follow and be surrendered to Him in all things. We have put our home and land up for sale, to pay off the mortgage and to hopefully help finance at least getting all of us over there. We applied for and received passports and will soon begin working on getting visas.

Sometimes it seems crazy, even scary, yet at the same time, we have never felt such peace and security in the Lord as we do now. We know that if we follow Him in this, we will not be ashamed when we see Him face-to-face someday, and that it is eternity, so much more so than this passing temporal life, that really matters.

Currently we spend our time in worship and study and trying to get rid of all of our 'stuff'. As the Lord leads me, I still spend time working on my business project, a browser-based visual web development suite of applications, which I plan to present to the public as a free software-as-a-service platform. It is my hope that in return for the many hours of hard work I have (and continue to) put into it, and for the usefulness and help it is able to provide, that the users will consider donating a small fee to help us be able to help orphans in Thailand. In this way I feel that I can offer something of value to trade to those who may be inclined to help support the Lord's work through us. Hopefully this will result in a win-win situation for both us and those who may profit through my work. I do not know when I will be able to release version 1.0 (beta) but I have been spending many days (and sometimes nights) for over a year now on this single project (and I have 25 years of experience as a programmer, so hopefully I know what I am doing!) I believe it will be extremely beneficial to the web development community. In the meantime, we pray, work and depend on God for our providence, and He has been faithful.

I am not sure if anyone even reads this blog anymore - it has been awhile since I posted in it regularly (and most of my posting until recently was not from someone who had truly surrendered his life to God) - but if anyone does read this, I ask you to please pray for us. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and sometimes our faith wavers ever so slightly (especially if we take our eyes off of the Lord, and like Peter on the water, begin to look around). Learning to trust in God's providence is a joy and an adventure, but it requires that we always stay close to Him, and are continually in-filled by the Holy Spirit to equip us for what we are not equipped to do in and of ourselves.

Surrender to Yeshua

2012-01-13T23:23:00.000-08:00

     I have made a complete surrender of my life to The Teacher. His name is Yeshua.

     Although I have considered myself a Christian for many years, I had never really surrendered everything, without reservation, to the will of God, until August 2011. I hope and pray that I will continue to be able to do this daily from now until forever.

     Writing this now seems somewhat strange, because for much of my life, I have thought that I was surrendered to God already. Certainly many years prior to 2011. So what is the difference now? I will try to explain what may seem subtle at first, but has become such a life-changing difference.

     You must first understand that while I thought I was obedient to God's will, I was keeping certain things 'off limits' - as in, 'I know God is not calling me to be a missionary' and 'yes Jesus told some person to sell all he had and give it to the poor, but he isn't telling me that.' The problem with my thinking was that I wasn't giving God a chance to have a say in the matter.

      I was deciding that certain things, which just happened to align nicely with the desires of my own carnal nature, were not being asked of me by God, but I was never truly and earnestly seeking his will regarding them before making these decisions. I wonder now how many times I have assumed, without even giving it a moments thought, that God is not calling me to sacrifice - that he never desires for me to give in a way that hurts, or even inconveniences, myself. I ask myself now, is it truly God's will that he will never ask such things of those who, like myself, profess to follow him, and yet live a life that is one primarily of self-indulgence?

     Now I did not believe that I was living a life of self-indulgence. I thought I was very compassionate. I certainly suffered - to the point of death, in fact - but I have begun to ask myself these questions more and more now, to try to really take an honest, brutal look at who and what i really am. I have been challenging myself to read the words of Yeshua, the Annointed One, that is, the one we often refer to as Jesus Christ, and not only read them, but take them literally, seriously, as applying to me personally.

      Now, I think for the first time in my life, I am really asking God to use me in whatever way he desires, not just within whatever subcontext I want to limit him to, and the results are that my life seems to be taking an astonishing turn - and I have re-discovered wonder, joy, hope and excitement.

     I am not saying God calls everyone to be a missionary, or to give all that they have to the poor, but I do believe now that I shouldn't dismiss such possibilities out of hand without a second thought. For others who have lived like I have, within the great abundance and extraordinary blessings of countries like the United States of America, perhaps we should be giving more thought to those who have less, and to what we will say when we stand before our Lord and Savior and asks us why we gave him no water when he was thirsty, no food when he was hungry. I do not want to stand ashamed before Him upon His return. I do not want to have Him say he never knew me. I want to hear him say 'well done, good and faithful servant,' and so am just now beginning to live my life within the context of eternity. The wonderful thing is discovering just what a joy it can be when you really commit to living your life this way. It is a gift in and of itself.

Depressive Realism - A More Accurate Worldview But Not Necessarily a Healthy One

2010-02-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

While common supposition is that depression is a result of (or results in) people have an inaccurately negative viewpoint of themselves and/or life in general, Depressive Realism is the proposition that people with depression actually have a more accurate perception of reality, specifically that they are less affected by positive illusions of illusory superiority, the illusion of control and optimism bias.

Studies by psychologists Alloy and Abramson (1979) suggested that depressed people appear to have a more realistic perception of their importance, reputation, locus of control, and abilities than those who are not depressed. Especially noted was their "light-bulb" experiment, a part of their studies that consisted of depressed and non-depressed people being presented with a light-bulb and a button to press. Unknown to either group, the light bulb would go on and off independently of any pushes of the button - yet the depressed group far more accurately were able to discern this while a significant proportion of the non-depressed group felt they were exerting varying levels of control of the light bulb via the button they were pressing.

Dobson and Franche (1989) and later researchers have further supported this viewpoint with studies and similar experiments.

However...

"In recent decades, psychiatry has come to see rumination as a dangerous mental habit, because it leads people to fixate on their flaws and problems, thus extending their negative moods. Consider “The Depressed Person,” a short story by David Foster Wallace, which chronicles a consciousness in the grip of the ruminative cycle. (Wallace struggled with severe depression for years before committing suicide in 2008.) The story is a long lament, a portrait of a mind hating itself, filled with sentences like this: “What terms might be used to describe such a solipsistic, self-consumed, bottomless emotional vacuum and sponge as she now appeared to herself to be?” The dark thoughts of “The Depressed Person” soon grow tedious and trying, but that’s precisely Wallace’s point. There is nothing profound about depressive rumination. There is just a recursive loop of woe
...
The bleakness of this thought process helps explain why, according to the Yale psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, people with “ruminative tendencies” are more likely to become depressed." (Quoted from Depressions Upside - New York Times)

Daniel Gilbert, the bestselling author of Stumbling On Happiness, sees things this way:

"What gets us through life, evidently, is just the right amount of delusion — enough to fool us into feeling relatively good about ourselves (...we all believe ourselves to be above average; 90 percent of drivers certainly do), but not so much as to exceed our own credulity. "If we were to experience the world exactly as it is, we'd be too depressed to get out of bed in the morning," Gilbert writes. "But if we were to experience the world exactly as we want it to be, we'd be too deluded to find our slippers."
...
Interestingly, the clinically depressed seem less susceptible to these basic cognitive errors. For instance, healthy people can be deluded into greater happiness when granted the mere illusion of control over their environment; the clinically depressed recognize the illusion for what it is. All in all, it's yet more evidence that unhappy people have the more accurate view of reality — and that learning how to kid ourselves may be a key to mental health." (Quoted from Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert - NY Times Book Review)

Bruce Weinberg's publishing on the subject:

"psychologists have found that moderate overconfidence is both pervasive and advantageous and that people maintain such beliefs by underweighting new information about their ability." (Quoted from A Model of Overconfidence by Bruce A. Weinberg - Abstract)

And a (semi-lengthy) article that sums up these concepts (although with a somewhat pessimistic slant):

"Most people think of the “mentally disordered” as a delusional lot, holding bizarre and irrational ideas about themselves and the world around them. Isn’t a mental disorder, after all, an impairment or a distortion in thought or perception? This is what we tend to think, and for most of modern psychology’s history, the experts have agreed; realistic perceptions have been considered essential to good mental health. More recently, however, research has arisen that challenges this common-sense notion.

In 1988, psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown published an article making the somewhat disturbing claim that positive self-deception is a normal and beneficial part of most people’s everyday outlook. They suggested that average people hold cognitive biases in three key areas: a) viewing themselves in unrealistically positive terms; b) believing they have more control over their environment than they actually do; and c) holding views about the future that are more positive than the evidence can justify. The typical person, it seems, depends on these happy delusions for the self-esteem needed to function through a normal day. It’s when the fantasies start to unravel that problems arise.

Studies into clinical depression have yielded similar findings, leading to the development of an intriguing, but still controversial, concept known as depressive realism. This theory puts forward the notion that depressed individuals actually have more realistic perceptions of their own image, importance, and abilities than the average person. While it’s still generally accepted that depressed people can be negatively biased in their interpretation of events and information, depressive realism suggests that they are often merely responding rationally to realities that the average person cheerfully denies.

Lear's Fool speaks of wisdom disguised as madness. Those with paranoid disorders can sometimes possess a certain unusual insight as well. It has often been asserted that within every delusional system, there exists a core of truth—and in their pursuit of imagined conspiracies against them, these individuals often show an exceptionally keen eye for the real thing. People who interact with them may be taken aback as they find themselves accused of harboring some negative opinion of the person which, secretly, they actually do hold. Complicating the issue, of course, is the fact that if the supposed aversion didn’t exist before, it likely does after such an unpleasant encounter.

As one might imagine, these issues present some problems when it comes to treatment. How does one convince a depressed person that “everything is all right” when her life really does suck? How does one convince an obsessive-compulsive patient to stop religiously washing his hands when the truth of what gets left behind after “normal” washing should be enough to make any sane person cringe? These problems put therapists in the curious position of teaching patients to develop irrational patterns of thinking—patterns that help them view the world as a rosier place than it really is. Counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s justified because what defines a mental disorder is not unreasonable or illogical thought, but abnormal behaviour that causes significant distress and impairs normal functioning in society. Treatment is about restoring a person to that level of normal functioning and satisfaction, even if it means building cognitions that aren’t precisely “rational” or “realistic.”

It’s a disconcerting concept. It’s certainly easier to think of the mentally disordered as lunatics running about with bizarre, inexplicable beliefs than to imagine them coping with a piece of reality that a “normal” person can’t handle. The notion that we routinely hide from the truth about ourselves and our world is not an appealing one, though it may help to explain the human tendency to ostracize the abnormal. Perhaps the reason we are so eager to reject any departure from this fiction we call “normality” is because we have grown dependent on our comfortable delusions; without them, there is nothing to insulate us from the harsh cold of reality." (Quoted from The Total Perspective Vortex)

While that last paragraph may hit a little too close towards the Albert Camus' existentialistic view of "the absurd" for my personal beliefs, I find myself thinking there may be some merit to much of the above. The irony seems to be that most modern psychologists agree that awareness of this may in fact be counterproductive in terms of treating depression.

Edit: The overall impression that I take from it all is that it seems healthier to have a somewhat overly optimistic opinion than not - which is not necessarily to put this down as being something bad. Also in terms of life in general I personally believe that all I (or anyone) perceive(s) is not necessarily all that is - which the idea of a depressed person having a more accurate view of reality does not take into account. However I do think that people with a more accurate view of themselves, especially in terms of "goodness" and ability, do have a higher tendency towards depression than someone less prone to introspection.

After the Change - Contemplations of Going Back

2009-01-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

     "Oh that I should go back," I thought. "They will know me, and I them, and the onerous words will comfort me even as I long for release from them.
     ""But I can never go back. Not really. Because to really go back, I would have to reverse my soul, which I could no more do than travel back in time, which perhaps was what I wished for now and all along.
     ""Is this true?" I wondered. "Would going there bring only an empty shell of contempt and horror before me? Or would I, could it be, that I would fall back into the warm dream, or even feel the hand of God again?
     ""In my formless, boyish way, would I even go, supposing I decided to, when it came down to it? Would I make such a small sacrifice to endure such horror, or such comfort - I know not which - or should I rather imagine myself doing it for a time and then moving on to the next meaningless page of my existence?
     ""How I loathed what had been done to me. My very foundation stripped away - left alone and cold in airless wonder. Is it any surprise that this sensitive soul should seek solace in something warmer and yet ultimately destructive? That I should seek one last great glorious kiss of life before death, and cast thoughts of death away onto the wind until it must suddenly overcome me?
     ""How can anyone, anyone at all understand me - they understand nothing at all and have no notion of hell, though I do. These mortals walking through their prescribed life with their false sense of securities! It is almost comical, and I wonder what other souls in heathen time's past have mocked this insight with words and song and art. What fools we all are! It seems the one redeeming quality to have is complete inability to be aware of one's own foolishness - this sustains a person through this world and lets them sleep at night.
     ""But there! I have said more than enough, too much perhaps. To beat against stone only bruises the beater. And so, these thoughts, like all others, shall pass away into the night..."

Procrastination - Boy How Time Flies!

2008-12-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

Well I've finally gotten around to making another blog post. I was pretty sure it was just a few days ago that I told myself I'd post something or other on my blog 'tomorrow'. Now I look at the date of my last post and go "Woah! Where'd all that time go?"

I think as we get older, time seems to go by faster. I find this alarming. I guess it makes sense though. When you are three, a year is a third of your whole life and seems like forever. When you are 37, a year is just a minor blip on the timeline. Which makes me wonder. Am I going to wake up a few days from now and go "Woah! How'd I get to be 72 and in this nursing home?"

That is pretty scary. I better make sure I treasure and make the most of every minute of every day. This is especially true of family. My mom and dad are both still alive and I take it for granted sometimes. I need to take advantage of the time I have left with them.

And then I think of my boys, aged 11 (another 'Woah! how'd that happen?' comes to my mind), 9, 6, and 1. I need to enjoy my time with them at these ages, because before I know it they will be grown up and out of the house and I'll be lamenting that fact if I'm not careful.

Time is tricky. Don't let it sneak past you.

(This reminded me of another post I made on the subject, which I went back and found. It is at http://tryinghardtobreakfree.blogspot.com/2006/03/time.html and based on the song lyrics of Pink Floyd)

Drawing of Lukey and Scampy

2006-12-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

For Christmas my wife bought me a set of drawing pencils and charcoal and a sketch pad, so yesterday I did a drawing of my son Lukey holding our kitten Scampy. I'm not sure how much of the quality can be retained through scanning it into the computer as a JPEG image, but here it is:

One really neat thing about drawing (or any artistic endeavor) is that you can lose yourself in a sort of zone that is apart from the areas of your mind that keep track of time and responsibilities. After drawing the above picture (it took me about an hour and a half) my mind and emotions felt rested like I'd been on a mini-vacation. I think I'd like to start doing stuff like this more often - it provides a nice balance from the computer programming I do all day at work.

On The Inside

2006-11-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

The snow its coming, coming down
On white and weary cloud-lit town.
The cold she's blowing, blowing in,
Bringing with it vice and sin.
The sun he's hiding, hiding well;
Everyone has lights to sell.
The dwarf is selling, selling all;
Every ticket to the ball.
The winter whistles, whistles shrill,
Setting up to make the kill,
And here I'm sitting, sitting slouched;
Legs all tucked up on my couch;
My lamps they're glowing, glowing soft,
Quilts and blankets in my loft.
My story's done; it’s done and told;
I've finally come in from the cold.

A Winnie-the-Pooh Poem

2006-11-10T16:08:00.000-08:00

If anyone reading this has ever read any of the works by A. A. Milne, particulary those dealing with Edward Bear, or "Winnie-ther-Pooh" as he was sometimes called by a certain little boy, and has a shred of introspective ability, you will know of the peculiar grace and delight that these stories can bring even to us so called "grown-ups."

One of Pooh's mannerisms is that he likes to make up rhymes that he hums to himself (and sometimes to others), and they all have a certain kind of...well, a certain something, a tone, if you will...or maybe you don't. But there it is, and I've written one below in my best Pooh voice, so perhaps you'll read it, and perhaps not, but if you do, as Eeyore would say (in a rather dry voice) "Thanks for noticing."

My Pooh Hum that I wrote for Megan Because She Taught me the Word "Confuzzled"

When thinking makes me weary
And my brain is getting bleary
And I don't know if I'm rhyming
With words like poodle, or my timing
Is just off because I'm puzzled
(Or is the word befuddled),
Unless it rhymes with poodle
Then I'd say that I'm confuzzle
(only I'd say it like 'konfoozel')
Or maybe its confuzzle
(you pronounce it like 'kunfuzel')
Like the honey on my muzzle
Which reminds me of a little something
That I must go and attend...

When You Are Feeling Down Part II - a Discussion

2006-10-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Note: This discussion is about the topic of the poem entitled "When You Are Feeling Down" in the post prior to this one.

What Is Meant by "feeling down"?
In thinking about how to respond to someone who is feeling down, it first should probably be clarified what is meant by the term "down" in this context. "Down", in the sense being addressed here, is primarily an emotional state - one of sadness, depression, discomfort, discouragement, defeat, emotional pain, etc. As such I am addressing the emotional state directly, not so much the physical aspects that often accompany and/or are the cause of the individual "feeling down". This is a fine distinction but an important one.

What About Correcting the Problem?
I think our natural human tendencies when we see someone feeling down is to analyze their life and tell them what we think they should stop doing, and what we think they should start doing - i.e. we try to be 'fixers' of the problem by attacking directly at what we perceive are the sources of the problem.

This certainly seems to make sense from a logical perspective. After all, if a person comes to us and tells us they feel down, and we find that the reason this person feels this way is a result of receiving frequent speeding tickets from highway patrolmen, then advising the person to slow down and stop exceeding the speed limit when driving naturally would appear to be the logical response we would provide. This advice, if followed consistently, would almost certainly lead to the alleviation of getting speeding tickets altogether. It also seems logical that the negative emotions the person feels as a result of the consequences of driving too fast would also be alleviated because by driving slower such consequences are avoided. Nothing could be simpler, right? Wouldn't any other approach to helping this person with the problem be at best ineffectual, and at worst, just a bunch of useless and potentially harmful psycho-babble?

I do not disagree that many emotional problems are a result of consequences to specific actions (although this is not always true), nor do I disagree that correcting said actions would probably improve a person’s state of mind. However, that is not really what is being discussed here (or in the poem I wrote). Please consider the following carefully: the primary issue being addressed is how we should respond to someone who is feeling down, and why we should respond this way. While it is true that our interactions with such a person may help or hinder them overcoming any underlying problems they may have, the intent of this discussion is not to directly address “how to solve people’s problems” but rather could be better phrased as “what is the best response to a person who is feeling down?” It should be noted however (and this will be discussed in more detail below) that the latter often impacts the former.

The Problem With the "Fix-it" Response
As described above, the typical response to a person who comes to us feeling down is: "do what I tell you and it will solve your problems, and then you will feel better." However, there are two issues in regards to this that should be considered.

The first issue is that there is a reasonable possibility that the individual already knows what "fixes" would help their problem(s) to go away so that they could feel better. Most people are reasonably intelligent and capable of some insight. Particularly in situations they experience repeatedly or for long periods, there is a very good chance they know what types of actions could help alleviate their problems and thus the emotional pain associated with it. If this is the case, then the person probably needs comfort and reassurance to help give them strength to deal with their problems and/or state of mind. Going through a list of "Do's and Don'ts" and "enlightening" the individual on what faults and mistakes they have made that are resulting in them feeling this way is more likely to make them feel worse than better, nor is it likely to actually help much in any underlying problem solving. The things we tell a person they should stop doing and emphasizing which of their faults they need to improve on will most likely make them feel worse about themselves, and a long list of disciplined actions they need to start doing may make someone in a fragile mental state feel overwhelmed and hopeless.

The key thing to think about here is that many people are probably not very capable of correcting specific issues in their life when their state of mind is in the "down" mode. The thing that really needs to be addressed first is the emotional state. Once a person is in a positive frame of mind, then, and usually only then, will they be effective at dealing with the specific issues that led to this person "feeling down" in the first place.

I know that some disagree with this viewpoint. I used to be one of them, dismissing it as a lot of "liberal hooey" if not outright stupidity. The solution seemed so simple that it outraged me if someone suggested differently. If a person came to me who was feeling down I'd just tell the person what they needed to do to fix their problems (which would then make them feel better, I reasoned) and if they didn't agree with or follow my advice, then I figured it was their own fault they were feeling down because they were either refusing to help themselves or just too lazy to try. I also approached my own problems in this way, but for a long time never seemed to notice that I was never making any progress except downward, and even when I did begin to see this trend, I didn't immediately understand the why of what was going on.

Difficult experiences in a persons life usually leads to one of two opposing outlooks on life - more compassion or increasing bitterness. Being now close to the middle of my adult years and having personally experienced a fair number of trials has tempered my viewpoint on this topic. People who through luck or skill or inherited traits or any combination of such, and/or who have managed to avoid any major trials in their lives, as well as those who have become embittered at life due to harsh experience, may have a harder time agreeing with me on this issue. Then again, they may not - if they love God and are just greatful to him for having a blessed life.

The one thing that I can say unequivocally is this: When I personally have gone to people for comfort when I am feeling down, and was responded to with the "fix-it" approach described above, it rarely, if ever, helped me feel better or empowered me to overcome any underlying problems that may have been resulting in my feeling down. This is true despite the fact that I can genuinely say in all honesty that I truly wanted for the trial(s) to end in most such circumstances. I believe the problem is that emotions can be much more powerful than people give them credit for (although to what degree may vary from person to person due to past experiences and genetic traits), and until I could get past the negative emotions, my attempts at solving the underlying issues causing me to “feel down” would fail time and time again. I needed something else, but for a very long time I did not know what that was. I just felt defeated, discouraged, and depressed.

Emotions Don’t Do Logic
Like some maids don’t do windows, emotions don’t “do logic”; that is to say, emotion is an irrational condition and it doesn’t operate by rules of logic in human beings. The preceding statement is worthy of an extended discussion of its own, but I think at some level most of us recognize this as being true. This is part of the reason why the “fix-it” approach often fails – it is based on logic. When you throw logic at an emotion, there is little or no interaction that occurs. For example, when you tell a depressed person to do X, Y, and Z, they may logically agree with you that they need to do those things. However, their emotional state of mind may be so strong that they fail at trying to motivate themselves to implement the "logical solution", and they find themselves being defeated at trying to do whatever it is that will help them feel better. This generally leads to a response to the “fix-it” approach of feeling even more negative and discouraged, even (or especially) if the person agrees with you from a logical standpoint, but just can't seem to follow through with the "fix".

The idea here is to consider what the person really needs, and in a lot of cases, a person feeling down comes to us in hopes that we can help them feel better, put some joy and positive energy in their life, not in hopes that we can give them some sort of “strategic plan”, unless they specifically indicate otherwise (and sometimes not even then - remember, emotion is not logical). They may well know what they need to do specifically, but something intuitive inside is crying out and saying “I feel wretched and alone and defeated. I want and need to feel better. I need help in getting into a positive frame of mind so I can better deal with my problems.”

There are exceptions. Sometimes a person really doesn’t know what they need to do to feel better or correct their life. This can be especially true of younger people with less experience in life and/or for someone who is experiencing a trial unlike any they have experienced before. In such cases, giving good advice in the humble manner of someone genuinely trying to help and sensitive the other’s emotional condition can be of great value, especially if you have experienced something similar to what the person you are trying to help is going through. For more difficult situations, the best thing to do may be to encourage the individual to seek professional counseling. However, in all cases, the primary response of being supportive and positive is crucial if we really want to help.

If We Shouldn’t Try to "Fix" the Person, How Should We Respond and Why?
I believe that most of the time when someone comes to us and expresses that they are “feeling down” in one manner or another, the first and best response is to empathize. Try to put yourself in this persons shoes mentally for a moment. Try to genuinely understand what they are going through, and communicate this understanding to them. This alone can work wonders with a person; if they feel like you really understand and care about how they feel, then this alone may help them feel somewhat better, and they are likely to be much more willing to let you into their life to help them.

A second but equally important response is to focus on the positive traits of the person rather than the negative ones. This often grates against our sense of logic and sometimes such a suggestion even engenders moral outrage, but generally speaking your viewpoint on this will depend at least in part on where you are coming from. Love and Grace centered individuals will probably have an easy time accepting this premise, while a person with strict disciplinarian sensibilities and strong personal willpower may not. In either case, if a person truly wants to help another who is feeling down, focusing on the positive and not the negative simply works better in terms of helping them, regardless of how counterintuitive this may seem.

I know this from personal experience, because for many years I have felt “down”, and when going to others for comfort and receiving “strategic planning” rather than empathy and love and support, I almost always just felt worse, defeated, and less able to overcome than before. In the cases where I was met with empathy, concern, and love, I found myself stronger and better able to overcome issues that affected my emotional state. Currently I am blessed enough to be getting counseling from an excellent professional and a very kind and caring individual who approaches counseling from this viewpoint...and you know what? It works! For the first time in a long time, I am finding myself making progress – not by focusing on the bad within me or past failures, but by focusing on my good qualities, nurturing those sparks, taking my mind in a whole new direction – I am looking upward, rather than downward, if you will, and it is not just something that sounds nice to say or write about. It is making a big difference in my life.

I just want to pass this on to others, because I feel it is fundamentally important, and I also want to try in my own personal life to respond to others when they are feeling down in this way – a positive way, a way that can empower rather than defeat a person, a way that works. Love works. Compassion works. Empathy works. Support works. Being positive with someone works. All these things not only help the person to feel better, but by making them feel better can help empower them to overcome those issues that may have been causing them to feel down to start with.

When You Are Feeling Down

2006-09-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

When you are feeling down
Pray let my word choice
Be wise. When I listen to my voice
Is the way I'm talking kind,
Or more like I have an axe to grind?

When you are feeling down
Pray let me to not lay the blame
For faults and sorrow are not the same
Are my words good, positive and true?
Or would they make a happy person blue?

When you are feeling down,
Pray let me not tell you all you need to do
These things you probably already knew
Let me realize sometimes to-do lists are wrong
Adding to your burdens may not make you strong

When you are feeling down
Pray help me to bear those burdens as my own
To put my strength for you on loan
Help me focus on the light within
To fan those sparks to flames again

When you are feeling down
Pray help me have the insight to see
Next time the one who’s down could be me
To give love unburdened, with no strings
Will put the wind beneath your wings

Chatting on the internet

2006-09-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

I use Yahoo Messenger to chat sometimes with a few friends and relatives. Recently, my older brother (who has been resisting the internet as much as possible up to this point) bought a laptop and discovered Yahoo Messenger. I now have to sign out of Yahoo Messenger if I am at work and want to actually get any work done. Okay, maybe its not that bad, maybe I even enjoy having a way to spend time other than staring at the forecast on weather.com for several hours because I don't have anything in particular I need to do that day, but still, I find this chat thing interesting.

For one thing, all the internet acronyms and terms go into full effect typically (except for a Newbie like Sterlyn...oops now I just did it, Newbie, lol). Sometimes the conversations are extremely deep and enlightening however, and you wonder if these people are just 1 million times smarter than you or what. I had a conversation like that today - here is part of it:

Megan : huh?
Nathan : what?
Megan : what do you mean by less ritalin?
Nathan : oh yeah, that, hehe
Nathan : nothing (hm,ladeda)
Megan : okay, i only know one laguage, and that's english -- okay? so... i don't know what you're saying... lol
Nathan : lol
Nathan : those were sounds not words, like 'heh'
Megan : ladeda?
Megan : oh!!
Megan : i get it
Megan : lol
Nathan : rofl
Megan : okay... no
Megan : oh
Megan : lol

As you can see from the above, chat conversations are often deep and highly technical in nature. Anyone who claims the internet is just for fun has obviously not had a chat like this (just like anyone who is taking this blog post seriously obviously has no sense of irony - which I heard is a problem in Japan.)

Tomorrow Never Dies

2006-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid,
The homework I did
Was always tomorrow,
Always tomorrow;
My plans were all laid
For tomorrow.

Thought that I would be great,
At the things that I did,
Thought I'd travel the world,
(when I was a kid)
Thought I'd be who I want
Get all those things done
Be having some fun,
Be soaking up sun,
By Tomorrow.

Yet now I'm a grown man,
And I don't understand,
How did the time fly?
How'd life pass me by?
How'd wonder just die?
But I don't think I'll cry,
'Till tomorrow.

But I know there's still time,
To go where I want to go,
To be who I want to be;
I guess that I'll do it,
I Think I will do it,
Yes I'm sure that I'll do it,
Tomorrow.

Song of the Night

2006-09-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here I am, only thirty-five,
Already I’ve lost all my drive,
Singing The Good Life with Weezer,
While doing my best to appease Her,

And with all my thoughts, with all introspection,
A relentlessly intricate self-brain dissection,
I have found that when my understanding gets deep,
Then I just get confused, or just go to sleep.

When I think I’m original, insightful, and wise,
Then it all comes to me, and I realize
How strange, how alien, everyone is;
I don’t understand them, I don’t understand you,
I don’t understand you at all.

This predictable world is so crazy
One minute I think its as boring as hell
And the next, I’m looking out
From my mind’s prison-cell
Wondering whose shadows
Are on my cave wall,
And why I don’t know them,
Understand them at all.

When I think I’m original, insightful, and wise,
Then it all comes to me, and I realize
How strange, how alien, everything is;
I don’t understand it, I don’t understand it,
I don’t understand it at all.

Reflections on a Friday Afternoon

2006-07-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

It is Friday and I am working today. (Well I am physically at my location of work anyway.) My boss, however, is out fishing in his boat, this being the first sunny day we have had here in the last year or so. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny too. While he had me in his office yesterday explaining what I needed to work on for him he got a call from his friend and I heard them discussing where they would fish and camp. It took them quite awhile. He then apologized for that phone call and outlined further what I needed to work on. Then he fired off a few more emails and exited stage right very quietly and quickly.

As I sit at my computer looking longingly out at the nice sunny day and imagining my boss on his boat and me sitting here working it occurs to me that this is the kind of situation which sums up why he is called boss and I am called, well, not-boss. It’s the sort of situation that gives rise to Communism.

The theory there is that no one is boss and they all share the boat. The reality, however, tends to be that the boat is too small and there is no bait and only the most-honorable chair-people ever get time enough away from the factory to use it anyway, so the rest of the common folk get depressed and drink too much Vodka.

So then they get disillusioned with the Great Revolution and begin imagining what it would be like to come to America and be a boss and have a boat all to yourself and tell someone else to do your work while you are on it. Then if they actually come to America they wind up becoming an overweight plumber in Milwaukee with degenerative back-disease and a corny accent. "Lonk lif zee Amereecan dreem!" they say sarcastically with a cigarette hanging on their lower lip while stuck in traffic. Meanwhile, I am still sitting here and my boss is out having the time of his life like in those ridiculous commercials for beer or amphibious trucks. You know the ones I'm talking about. Everyone is happy and beautiful and waterskiing and catching fish and throwing them to friendly bears while women in bikinis dance around the periphery. Those are the kind of commercials that tend to result in a Jihad somewhere. I can kind of understand this, because I tend to get a bitter feeling when I watch those commercials myself. Imagine what an overweight al-Qaeda member with a growing bald-spot thinks when he sees something like that. He looks at the commercial, looks down at himself, and the next thing you know he is fantasizing about blowing up buildings.

I read in the news today that a Muslim group had declared a Jihad on Israel. This struck me as strange. Not the Jihad, but the reporting of it as if it was new news. Isn't there always a Jihad going on against Israel? And how does that work anyway? Do they have a certain length, and then have to be renewed in some way, possibly by filling out a form of some sort? What if someone forgot? Now that would be newsworthy - headlines like "Bin Laden lieutenant forgets to fill out Jihad renewal form, record numbers fill Israeli busses and restaurants while appearing relaxed."

I think we've all gotten a little calloused about the whole Jihad thing. So some Muslim's want to spread their religion by force and violence, what do we care? Meanwhile if someone puts up a Christmas tree on city property he makes national head-lines and gets sued for trying to use the property of the state to offend people, which promptly stirs some Southern governor to raise a confederate flag over a court-house and briefly makes allies of Zionists and those who feel that al-Qaeda terrorists are just misunderstood, child-like people that just need to be extended the hand of friendship rather than criticized for blowing things up.

The whole thing starts to get confusing at this point, which is why I don't like politics or non-sport-related internet forums. Well, my bell has rung (figuratively) and I am free to go home and watch The Simpson’s, so I will leave the field of satirical philosophy to others for now while I steep my mind in something more worthwhile.

Artfall

2006-07-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

To crucify
A melancholy softness
Pervades a sunset soul
That temperament
Unwishing
Ungrasping
No still pictures
Just fading sand
Concrete Songs
Incomplete

Uphill Corner

2006-07-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

Been sleepin’ Been eatin’ Been stumbling
Around
A gloomy Icharus
Haunting the worlds of men

Now aiming for a deeper sun
Now trying to get in on the run
No more desire to have some fun
Time to start dressing in style
Hoping for that old laid-back smile
Been waiting for it for quite awhile

Thinking maybe around the corner
Is where I’ve been waiting to go
Is the explanation for this tragic TV show
The next episode, and they all laugh
Even the mental staff

Every day
And in every way
Getting better
And better

Preparing for the Spring

2006-05-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

Are you trying
To gather your strength?
When they said you're down,
Where you only crouching
For the Spring;
Were you resting
Before the big sprint;
Did the voice say
'Just a little longer,
And Then…';
Did you listen to those sad songs of the wind
One last time,
Preparing to burst into the fierce joy
One last time,
One more time,
Then to exhale it all away,
And arise to go forth to deeds great and strong,
Gathering your strength
To blast away the past,
To lock down your mind upon your will,
To become at last
The end you knew you'd fulfill?
Did you lie
Preparing to gather all your strength
Reaching that still, quiet point inside
Before the storm,
Only to find, somehow
The sun had gone down
Excuses hidden in a determined frown
Cobwebs on your body and face
Atrophied muscles and ground all lost
All hope and will, somehow now still,
In that quiet moment
Before the Spring.

You could summon your will
And rise and put forth your strength
Anytime you chose,
You were just reaching that quiet, still point,
That little rest before the spring,
And now somehow
You find…
Rest has stolen your bones.
Waiting has stolen your will.
You waited for the time to come,
But no signal came
And when you nevertheless tried
To arise,
A ghost of air escaped,
A breath, all your will.
In your mind you sprang forth
Only to find yourself
Still lying there, still crouching there,
Still waiting in that quite, still moment,
Still gathering your strength,
Still,
Still.

Do you cry out into the emptiness
For help?
Do you cry out
Fighting off despair?
Do you beat upon the air?
Are your words upon the night
'God help this sodden heap,
Become a warrior,
Rise and fight,
And shine like the sun?'

Do you wonder
How now will it be done?

The Saddest Thing

2006-05-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

He says
The saddest thing
When he flies upon
The upper reaches
Of distant galaxy
Is being all alone
Some would call that free

Head On Lyrics

2006-05-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

Artist: Jesus and Mary Chain

sung by Jim

As soon as I get my head round you
I come around catching sparks off you
I get an electric charge from you
That second hand living it just won't do

And the way I feel tonight
I could die and I wouldn't mind
And there's something going on inside
Makes you want to feel makes you want to try
Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky
I can't stand up I can't cool down
I can't get my head off the ground

As soon as I get my head round you
I come around catching sparks off you
And all I ever got from you
Was all I ever took from you

And the world could die in pain
And I wouldn't feel no shame
And there's nothing holding me to blame
Makes you want to feel makes you want to try
Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky
I'm taking myself to the dirty part of town
Where all my troubles can't be found

The Chance to Be Saved

2006-05-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

And when that crimson mist
Sprays upon the wall
And acrid smoke rises
Uncaring,
The world has lost
lost

Objectivitylessness Inevitable

2006-05-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

Even the great
If you call them so
Are only there
Because they stroke
Thine Hair

Modesty

2006-05-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

I've got a million of em
And not just one
And the quality
If you put my name in lights
Will put the entire race
Within my sights
Bam
But just an empty voice
On empty wind
Rocks naught
But the supernova
Far beyond thine thought

Come, Let Us Reason Together

2006-05-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Relativity, don't waste my time
Dogma, don't make me sick
Thinking, its just your way
Your object for the day
Wisdom, this thing,
All things desire
And all they claim
Falling into everlasting fire

Still Trying

2006-05-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Being so soft so weak
So kind, don't speak
So strong, so wise
So savingly cool in their devize
The angle is right, no matter which scope
Which window
Which head
Silhouettes your sight
We all pull the trigger
On endless night

World's Eye

2006-05-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

All the world
All the world
So kind so good so cruel so cold
So utterly
Divine
So slothfully
Fools and ignorant wretch
That I am
They will not say
But knowing knows
While the pigs revel in their sty
Only clouds will float on high